MCU Phase 4 Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best. To coincide with today's release of "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever", I'm ranking the other Phase 4 MCU projects. 

MCU Phase 4 Movies Ranked: 

6.Black Widow (2021):

Scarlett Johansson and the character of Natasha Romanoff got done so dirty by Marvel. Not only does Black Widow's post-Captain America: Civil War setting make her long-delayed solo espionage movie feel completely dated in the current MCU timeline, but she's also frequently upstaged in what was supposed to be her swan song following her shocking death in Avengers: Endgame by Florence Pugh's Yelena and David Harbour's Red Guardian-who *surprise surprise* are set to be key figures in the next wave of Marvel projects. Also, the less said about Ray Stevenson's performance as the film's primary villain Dreykov and his attempt at a Russian accent, the better.

Grade: B-

5.Thor: Love and Thunder (2022):

Ironically enough, Taika Waititi's follow up to Ragnarok has joined the pair of Thor movies he didn't make in the realm of overhated superhero movies. While it is a huge step down in quality from the tremendous Ragnarok that would've benefited from having a tighter script, featuring some supporting characters (Tessa Thompson's Valkryie, Christian Bale's villainous Gorr the God Butcher) more prominently and having CGI that didn't look like it was done on the cheap back in 2004, Love and Thunder still does a good job of serving as a campy, funny and relentlessly frantic 80's-inspired journey of self-discovery for Thor that puts the character back on a heroic path after he lost his way following the destruction of Asgard at the end of Ragnarok.   

Grade: B

4.Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021):

The appeal of Spider-Man: No Way Home is easy to grasp. It essentially serves as a big celebration of all 3 generations of Spider-Man movies and watching the Spider-Men (Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield, Tom Holland) interact and eventually team-up to fight the primary villains from the Maguire and Garfield movies (Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, Lizard, Electro) was a fun experience-especially in a packed theater where each character entrance was greeted with thunderous cheering from the crowd. However, No Way Home is also a world class example of what Martin Scorsese was talking about with his now infamous "superhero movies are like theme parks" quote. This movie is packed with such a high degree of carefully curated fan service that's meant to get people clapping and making guttural noises of approval like they're fucking seals at an aquarium eagerly waiting for their fish carcass lunch to get tossed to them that it often feels more like a flashy roller coaster than an actual movie. It's great that people got excited about all of this Spider-Man porn and I'd be lying if I said a fair amount of it didn't resonate with me, but there's something really hollow and soul-crushing about a movie that's more interested on preying on people's nostalgic love for a beloved character than telling an actual story and that creative philosophy put a limit on how much I liked No Way Home.      

Grade: B

3.Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022):

After Scott Derrickson got axed from Multiverse of Madness over creative differences, I was convinced that Kevin Feige was going to treat this like Ant-Man and remove whatever weirdness the original director had planned and make something extremely safe. Instead, Feige hired Sam Rami as a replacement and let the man behind the Evil Dead franchise and Drag Me to Hell run as wild as he possibly could given how vital this franchise is to Disney's bottom line. Using the limitless possibilities of the Multiverse as a way to bring legitimate horror undertones into this typically lighthearted, family-friendly universe and portray beloved MCU characters in unexpected ways (EX: Having the Illuminati be smug, self-righteous pricks that laugh off the dire warning Doctor Strange brings to them), Rami creates this campy, playful descent into (relative) chaos that pushes the limits of the PG-13 ratings with its bursts of violence/creepy imagery and presents MCU vets Bendict Cumberbatch and Elizbeth Olsen with the chance to take their characters in an array of radically different directions-which provided these immensely gifted actors the opportunity to show off their ranges without ever forgetting that they're in a purposefully silly superhero movie.

Grade: B+

2.Eternals (2021):

As much as the title characters would've benefitted from being introduced via a Disney+ show that gave their dense lore the time it needed to be fully fleshed out, the ambition, scope and humanism that Chloe Zhao provides Eternals with a unique feeling that is unlike anything Marvel has ever produced. Its emphasis on the complex relationship dynamics among the Eternals as the film depicts how spending centuries on Earth has impacted each member of the team in profoundly different ways that eventually drives them apart provides these characters with an emotional intelligence that makes all of their arcs really fascinating to follow, the high stakes that causes the Eternals to reunite give this film an epic, almost apocalyptic atmosphere and Zhao's insistence that the movie was shot on location with natural light as much as possible gives it a striking look that reenforces why Hollywood shouldn't be as beholden to soundstages with green/blue screen backdrops as they are right now.  

Grade: B+

1.Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021):

While Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings may lack the sweeping scope of Eternals or the eerie weirdness of Multiverse of Madness, it makes up for its less unique DNA by lacking many of the rough edges that prevented those films from hitting that next level of greatness. Indie drama director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, Just Mercy) nailed his promotion to the big blockbuster stage by successfully spicing up a straightforward superhero origin story with the electric fight scenes, badass supernatural lore and graceful romantic beauty of a Hong Kong martial arts flick, unearthing a relatively unknown actor in the deeply charismatic Simu Liu to play Shang-Chi and providing the MCU with one of its most memorable villains to date in The Mandarin-who is brought to life with equal menace and empathy by Tony Leung.    

Grade: A-